Overview

This guideline provides global, evidence-informed recommendations on vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy as a public health intervention for the purpose of improving maternal and infant health outcomes.

Vitamin D deficiency is thought to be common among pregnant women, particularly during the winter months, and has been found to be associated with an increased risk of pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes mellitus, preterm birth, and other tissue-specific conditions. Recent scientific literature has reported the effects of vitamin D supplementation on adverse maternal and infant outcomes.

Member States have requested guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) on the efficacy and safety of vitamin D supplementation in pregnant women as a public health strategy, in support of their efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and the global targets set in the maternal, infant and child nutrition comprehensive implementation plan.

The guideline is intended for a wide audience including policy-makers, their expert advisers, and technical and programme staff at organizations involved in the design, implementation and scaling-up of nutrition actions for public health.

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Financial support
• Executive summary
• Scope and purpose
• Background
• Summary of evidence
• Recommendations
• Remarks
• Implications for future research
• Dissemination, adaptation and implementation
  • Dissemination
  • Adaptation and implementation
  • Monitoring and evaluation of guideline implementation
• Guideline development process
  • Advisory groups
  • Scope of the guideline, evidence appraisal and decision-making
• Management of conflicts of interest
• Plans for updating the guideline
• References
• Annex 1 GRADE “Summary of findings” tables
• Annex 2 Summary of the Nutrition Guidance Advisory Group's considerations for determining the strength of the recommendation
• Annex 3 WHO Steering Committee for Nutrition Guidelines Development 2010–2011
• Annex 4 Nutrition Guidance Advisory Group – Micronutrients 2010–2011, WHO Secretariat and external resource experts
• Annex 5 External Experts and Stakeholders Panel
• Annex 6 Questions in Population, Intervention, Control, Outcomes (PICO) format

A WHO guideline is any document, whatever its title, containing WHO recommendations about health interventions, whether they be clinical, public health or policy interventions. A recommendation provides information about what policy-makers, health-care providers or patients should do. It implies a choice between different interventions that have an impact on health and that have ramifications for the use of resources. All publications containing WHO recommendations are approved by the WHO Guidelines Review Committee.

Suggested citation:

WHO. Guideline: Vitamin D supplementation in pregnant women. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2012.

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